Winter

Allow the field to fall fallow
to replenish the soil we say
its ventricles all in array
rotate the hopes to plant
a new one--we can't allow
an uneven how, but this is the way
of life—of lifting fog
of listless days' summer's heat
winter's low-hung skies
darkness painted on glasses
whose prescription is old
but allows us to barely see
a horizon, unclimbed
a bottle, unimbibed

The sky hung glowing, the sun low and fading, a sky's eye burned blue as darkness held court through lamp light wicks smoldering from brightness once thought to be true.

three little puffs
from a giant little train
handing—like kids on street corners
—on invisible threads
in the azure sea
blinded white by a
sandburned sun
concrete jungles dense with leaves
blushed by rays, burnished by
skyward thinking
breeze-block kisses
flurried with flowers
bouquets sundered
and tarmac snails wander
'cross greying grounds

In bright raiment, shaded
a fade across the eye
a whisper of sky unbidden
a golden breath of spring
ungiven, seen but not felt
on skin cracked from a thousand
petty moments, longing
purpose—a moment, a song

a soft pall of greying wool, the horizon tucked in, an obscuring embrace that comforts—a heavy depression that smothers. A weight from heights that gifts wonder and kills joy; the heaven's sadness, a mist of compassion creeps, sorrowful skies whimper of death and hope for the greening leaves, for winter's sleep.

Snow dusts the rooftops and kissed the arms
of once great trees now disrobed
clothes of office discarded—priestly plates
arrayed and guarded by trunks now shod
with iron feet to ward the fey, all buried
deep in icy sod, hardened by the neglect
of those who called them friend
but the trees remain, frozen in place
hiding the stains